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them. On the other hand, any day not spent in court is a day
lost for them and it was a matter of some importance to
force their way inside. In the end, they agreed that they
would try to tire the old man out. One lawyer after another
was sent out to run up the steps and let himself be thrown
down again, offering what resistance he could as long as it
was passive resistance, and his colleagues would catch him
at the bottom of the steps. That went on for about an hour
until the old gentleman, who was already exhausted from
working all night, was very tired and went back to his office.
Those who were at the bottom of the steps could not believe
it at first, so they sent somebody out to go and look behind
the door to see if there really was no-one there, and only
then did they all gather together and probably didn’t even
dare to complain, as it’s far from being the lawyers’ job to
introduce any improvements in the court system, or even to
want to. Even the most junior lawyer can understand the
relationship there to some extent, but one significant point
is that almost every defendant, even very simple people, be-
gins to think of suggestions for improving the court as soon
as his proceedings have begun, many of them often even
spend time and energy on the matter that could be spent far
better elsewhere. The only right thing to do is to learn how
to deal with the situation as it is. Even if it were possible to
improve any detail of it which is anyway no more than su-
perstitious nonsense the best that they could achieve,
although doing themselves incalculable harm in the pro-
cess, is that they will have attracted the special attention of
the officials for any case that comes up in the future, and the

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